


A story about names

by Silveriss



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: (also feat. an abuse of parentheses), Aziraphale is rather mushy (and so am I), Crowley is rather clueless (or is he), Drunken Confessions, Feat. loose quotes from the show, Feat. the bookshop, Fluff, Gift Giving, M/M, Pet Names, Post-Canon, and then some not so drunk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-19 05:34:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20325940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silveriss/pseuds/Silveriss
Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley have been friends for a long, long time. It started six thousand years ago, and almost ended with a bang. But it didn't, and so now they have to figure out how to adjust - how much of 'before' to keep, what will change, and whether to keep ignoring the unnameable chest gathering dust in one corner of Aziraphale's bookshop.Language is power, after all, and they say wine loosens tongues.





	A story about names

**Author's Note:**

> I've been taking notes of some words I wanted to say about Aziraphale and Crowley, and somehow this was born from it. I hope it conveys some of the love I have for those two, and for the fics I read after watching the show. I was inspired, heavily, by those fics, especially the ones written by drawlight - which I strongly recommend you check out, if you haven't already.  
I attempted to write this in Brittish English. As a non-native speaker, however, my usual English is a joyful mix of words from both the US and the UK, so I apolgize in advance if there are some mistakes here and there. If you notice any, let me know and I'll change it.

Crowley and Aziraphale have been friends for, oh - a lifetime. You know how these things go. Then again, maybe you don't.

Let me tell you either way.

It's starts, as most things tend to, with a beginning.

In the Beginning, there was nothing. So much nothing, in fact, that nothing is already too much. So let us correct ourselves. In the Beginning, then, nothing was _not._ The only thing that was was a negation. The Verb. Already something. In an eternity it will evolve into language, but let us move faster. Time, after all, has just started running.

In the Beginning (not of all things but of this story, _ their _ story) there were two angels. One was with the stars, and the other had a flaming sword. (He did. It was flaming like anything. Many things would happen to it, this sword, but that is another story, though it runs parallel to this one.) Except that this was not really the beginning, was it? Not at all. Not really. In the beginning, the real one, there was only one angel, and a demon that had sauntered down into hell only to slither right back up to eden. There was an angel without a sword and a demon with too many questions.

Curiosity is interest, is questions and answers and the faint outline of something more waving in the distance. _ You can't see me yet but I will seize both of you, _ the something says. They cannot listen. Look. They're too busy talking to each other.

_ "Would be funny, huh, if we'd both gotten it wrong? If I'd done the good thing, and you the bad one?" _

Adam and Eve too had asked questions. Look where that had gotten them: a flaming sword in hand and pain enough for a lifetime. It's a little different for them.

Crowley had fallen, then gotten up. Aziraphale had not, but he'd stepped down anyway, hadn't he? Fall and up, stay then down. _ Let us meet in the middle, you and I. On this questions-doubts-pained earth. Let us ask questions. Don't be wary. Look, I'll go first:_

_ "Didn't you use to have a flaming sword?"_

* * *

It always starts with a question mark. What the words stacked-up before actually mean is never the important part. It's always the question that matters.

_ Didn't you use to have a flaming sword? _ spelling _ Hello _ spelling _ Hi, I'm different too. Curiosity's my oddity; what's yours? _

_Let us meet again sometime. You can give me an answer then._

_ (You can ask questions too.) _

And they did. Aziraphale and his non-flaming absence of sword, Crowley and his yellow-snake eyes, they met again. And again. And again. Over and over through time and space. Questions are not bound by linearity.

_(I've never had an oyster. Have you? _ _Teach me what it tastes like, that I may try your sin. Your oddity. Pour lemon on it, make it squirm then slurp it up as though we're out of time. You'll go to Edinborough if I bring people see Hamlet. Tempt me, would you? I'll come at your rescue, I'll take you home or to the Ritz. Anywhere you want to go. You get the glass, I'll pour the wine. Let me believe in something.)_

_(Temptation - that's your job, isn't it? _ _Eat an oyster, smell the binding of old books and the stains of ink beneath your nails. Indulge me. Can you taste the tannins in the wine? Those little demonic miracles of your own, let's roll them up in crepes, add cream and chocolate as though they're not already sweet enough. Enable me. Those late evening of ours. Let me save us from the bombs so that you may save my books and drive me home. Let me wiggle around the rules.)_

But let us move forward.

* * *

Look - this is where the prologue ends and the heart of the story begins. 

Crowley and Aziraphale have been friends for more than a lifetime. Several does not begin to cover it. Six thousands years, and counting still.

This is when we are: the Armageddon did not happen; Heaven and Hell are put-off but calm enough, for now; Crowley and Aziraphale are finally free to do so as they please. 

This is where we are: London, on a freshly nuclear-free Earth. (No one really knows where the electricity is coming from, except, perhaps, for a few kids, two new couples, and one old. But let's slow down.)

We are in London, Soho, and Aziraphale is quite busy miracling all the dust back into his not-completely-burned-down-anymore bookshop while Crowley listens to a blessedly non-Queen song in his car. Things have not quite gone back to normal yet, but they're about to be. Thus, a question: _ will we let them? _

They're about to answer. Listen.

* * *

Aziraphale picks up a first signed edition of _ A la Recherche du temps perdu,_ and runs his dust-light fingers over the old cover.

A real sad one, Proust, for someone so captivated by the most minute workings of our senses' memory, sensuality in its first and new meanings. Looking for lost time in his tiny blocks of letters (_like fly legs_, the French would say), always scratching off, always adding pieces, a gigantic collage of a manuscript, a work of art already just to look at before his publisher sculpts it into readable shape.

Aziraphale allows himself to think (just for now, just a little) about the series' last tome, whose manuscript he has tucked away into the backroom's chest, along with _ the rest of them. _

Oh, not the rest of the manuscripts, no. Not the priceless items either (all the books in his shop are), or Crowley's contributions to his bookshop (Aziraphale knows, of course. Crowley's not as stealthy as he thinks he is.) - no, those he keeps there on the shelves, on the perfect spot where they have been gently placed by pianist hands.

The chest in the backroom, now that's for something else. Something... _ something. _ Aziraphale's not quite ready to say what yet.

He is aware of it, of course he is. He has to, after so long. It's saying it out loud that's damning. The power of language, there again. The Verb. It has evolved since the Beginning, but its power is the same.

Aziraphale knows this, which is why the chest is full of ineffable things. He gathers them, but does not say what it is he is doing it for. A name is a confession, after all, and so Aziraphale dances with denial and flirts with avoidance, all on the head of a pin. (He has always been so very fond of dancing, this one. This odd angel. The Principality with his gavotte legs. _ Let us do the waltz together. I step forward you step back. Again and again and again until we’re both too drunk on it to stand._)

Crowley comes into the shop. He has listened to the Velvet Underground until he was sick with it; now he wants a quiet evening with a hint of vanilla in the dust, wine-parched and already smiling. The CLOSED sign on the glass door swings with the door; the customer bell has barely any time to ring before Crowley snaps the irritating noise off.

This is how it goes: Crowley walks in with all the confidence of an anxious ostrich set on stubbornly pretending that it did not just almost lose everything, and Aziraphale pretends that he hasn't been waiting to hear the tell-tale strangled song of his bell all afternoon.

"Angel?" (Crowley's voice in the empty shop, unusually careful.) "You in here somewhere?"

(Let me explain why Crowley asks: when you have lost something once, you start expecting it to be gone every time you blink. People, no matter how hellish or heavenly, are worse.)

Aziraphale is, in fact, in the bookshop, this time. So he sets the book back on the shelf, pushing it into its designated spot, and steps out of the dark little corner where he's been blowing the dust in. Crowley is running a negligent finger over the top of a pile of books, and he raises it towards Aziraphale with his eyebrows up.

"You've been busy," he notes, then wipes his finger off on his pants, just to keep some of it with him when he'll leave. Aziraphale's smile is a warm loaf of bread, hospitality made face, offered so easily Crowley sways a little on his feet.

"Oh, you know how it is, with books. They just bring the dust in, I've always said. It wouldn't be the same without it."

"I suppose not."

Crowley's smile is a slow thing. It creeps up on him, like teeth sinking into something soft (like, say, some non descriptively warm, freshly baked piece of bread), and his throat aches with the thirst for wine, to wash it down.

(It's always bread and wine. Flesh and blood. Crowley's always found that metaphor rather gruesome, but then again, he's never been much of an eater. He's seen what an apple can do.)

They move to the back of the shop. (They have seen each other this morning, but it had not been enough. It never is.) Aziraphale brings a few bottles from his collection and pours them both a glass. They settle down: Crowley on the sofa, Aziraphale on the armchair, as they have done countless times. Creatures of habit, the both of them.

(Modernity underestimates the power of familiarity. Ask me about safety, I will tell you about routine. How they both fought to keep theirs.)

"How's the car, my dear?" Aziraphale asks around a sigh. The wine is good, the armchair comfortable. He is content and in his contentment softens. 

Crowley shrugs his bony shoulders and settles his legs more comfortably across the sofa. He looks careless, and decadent. "Oh, you know. Brand new, but doesn't smell like it. Quite like your shop."

"I see. That's all good then."

"Hm. All good, yeah," Crowley mumbles, but he's distracted by the way the light shines through Aziraphale's will-o'-the-wisp-like crown. Really a halo, his hair; it pierces Crowley's eyes like the sun. For all his hedonism, there's no forgetting about Aziraphale's holiness. Heaven is woven into the fabric of him. Although where they stand now with either side is unclear - they haven't heard from them, either of them. Crowley knows this, needs to hear it anyway. "You haven't... been bothered by, y'know - upstairs?"

"No, they've been rather quiet, have they?” Aziraphale shakes his head and takes a sip of wine. “What about your lot?"

"Nuh-uh, not a peep," Crowley squeaks. Clears his throat. "Not since - since... you know," he says, left hand eloquently going round. Aziraphale nods.

"Not since we were in each other's corporeal forms, no."

Crowley grimaces.

"Did you _ have _ to say it like that?"

Aziraphale waves it away with a _'psshhht'_ and fills their glasses up again. They cheer, a second time. Aziraphale's eyes are starlight bright. (It’s not their second glass, but neither of them is really trying to keep track.)

"You know," he starts, then stops, frowns, leans back and licks his lips. Crowley doesn’t notice; he’s looking at his hair. Cotton-soft and cloud-tinted, yellow light takes a bluish hue as it filters through. Like that gemstone, whatever the name was - the one that fell from the moon, or did the humans get up there and mine it? He can't quite seem to remember.

"You know," Aziraphale repeats, considering the words as he speaks them, "it wasn't really unpleasant."

Crowley blinks. "Whuh?"

"Being - well, you _ know_. I didn't dislike it. Quite the contrary, in fact."

"Huh," Crowley says. (He's not thinking about hair anymore. He's thinking about _ You go too fast for me, Crowley, _ except this time it's him who’s not prepared for the ride.)

Aziraphale nods, wise as only the Inebriated are. "Yes, I really enjoyed it. Very different from mine, your corpeal- your _ corporeal _ form. More angular than I'm used to, but very pleasant - very pleasant indeed."

Crowley says: "Ngk," then proceeds to choke on the last of his glass. He doesn't know how much they've both had at this point; Aziraphale keeps filling them back up before he's had the time to count. He thinks perhaps it might be time to stop.

Aziraphale leans forward, frowning, and puts a hand on his shoulder.

"Are you quite alright, my dear?"

Crowley blinks at that hand so carelessly offered (there’s nothing that should keep them apart anymore, is there?), then in Aziraphale's concerned gaze.

They are very, very close.

Crowley blurts out: "Moonstone.”

Aziraphale repeats: "Moonstone?"

Crowley clears his throat and leans back. (Aziraphale's hand leaves an imprint through the fabric right on his skin, an emptiness of warmth. He rubs at it.)

"Your hair," Crowley explains, then gestures towards the top of Aziraphale's head when that doesn't seem to clear things up for him. "That... puffy, _ fluffy _ thing up on your head. The color. It’s the same."

Aziraphale seems to understand, because he reaches up to straighten one lock of wisp before his nose and crosses his eyes to stare at it.

Crowley shouldn't find _ that _ attractive, of all things, but dammit all, he _ does_. Blame the moonstone, or the wine. Either way he decides it’s time to put the glass down.

"Let's sober up," he says.

Aziraphale blinks owlishly at him and lets his white lock go. There is a moment of odd silence as Aziraphale takes inventory of Crowley's body language, and then a soft "alright".

They fill the bottles back up. Crowley groans when he's done, drapes himself over the sofa like the wrung out sack he is. Aziraphale sighs, leans forward and reaches to pat his knee. He looks concerned still, albeit content.

"Better, dear boy?"

Crowley grunts, then props himself back up.

"Why do you always say that?" Aziraphale's brows go up into the clouds, so Crowley waves a frustrated hand around. "_Dear _ boy, my _ dear_," he grimaces the words out. The taste is off in his own mouth. _ (I wonder what they taste like in yours.) _ "You always call me that."

It makes Aziraphale frown, and Crowley suddenly wishes he’d kept his mouth shut. "Does it bother you? I can stop if you'd like."

"_No,_” Crowley says, too quickly. “No. I just wondered, is all."

Aziraphale looks dubious, but doesn’t press. "I wouldn't know how to explain. You do the same besides - always _ angel _ this, _ angel _ that."

"I don’t - Angel is not a _ pet name_,” Crowley hisses. “I call you angel because that's what you _ are_."

"Well then, I suppose it's quite the same with me." And Aziraphale shrugs.

(A name is always a confession. This is a story about names.)

"But," Crowley says. Stammers. Gazes into Aziraphale's nightsky eyes like they might help.

(But this is as much a story about names as it is about silence. And there is a silence here. Listen.)

Aziraphale hesitates. He is thinking about words. (Everything left unsaid.) He is thinking about names. (The chest full of items in the back of the shop.)

He thinks about Proust, and decides that they have lost enough time.

"I have something for you," he says, and pats Crowley's knee as he gets up.

The chest is heavy in his arms as he carries it into the corner where they always drink, and covered in dust. Aziraphale settles down on the sofa and blows it off, then hands it over to Crowley, who's too shell-struck not to take it. He rests it in his lap.

_ (There. That wasn't so hard, was it? Now keep going.) _

Aziraphale's thigh bumps into his. "It's a gift," he says, naming it at last. "Well - _ gifts_, plural, if you feel like going into the semantics. I thought - oh, it doesn't matter what I thought. _ It's for you. _ That's what matters." He punctuates the last sentence with a small pat on the chest and a worried glance towards Crowley, who has yet to say a word. His mouth is cast down, but his eyebrows are curved up, and he looks like he almost expects Aziraphale to take it back, or for the box to disappear into thin air.

Neither of those things happen. Instead, Aziraphale presses their thighs closer and smiles, encouraging as a dove.

"Well, go on then. Open it."

And so Crowley, gingerly, like the chest might break, pries his precious gift open.

(You have to be careful with names, don't press them. Gifts take time, and a name should always be given. Let me tell you about gifts.)

While Crowley looks inside the chest, Aziraphale takes his time to look at him. His copper-fire hair, sticking up; the darkly tinted glass before his eyes; the nose, the cheeks, the chin, softer than they have looked before. (_Patina, _ his mind supplies. _ Familiarity smoothes things down._) But Aziraphale wants to see Crowley’s eyes, wants to see his gift reflected into their yellow-butter shine, so he picks the glasses off Crowley's face and carefully lifts them out of the way.

There are tears there where their eyes meet.

(Listen. This is what wonder sounds like.)

"Do you love me, my dear?"

Crowley chokes on a sob.

"Course," he croaks out. "F'course I do, angel. S'only been thousands years."

"Ah, that's good. I would have felt rather silly if you didn't," Aziraphale says, but he's not really listening to himself speak. He is far too busy cradling Crowley's cheeks. "I am sorry it took me so long to catch up."

Crowley catches his hands but he does not pry them off. No, he'd rather just keep them here. (_Don’t you dare let me go.)_

"S'alright. A demon and an angel, I don't think our sides would have liked that."

"We don't have a side anymore."

"Right." Crowley looks at Aziraphale's lips then immediately away, licks his own. He thinks about eating bread and drinking wine. _ Flesh and blood. _ Perhaps it's not that gruesome after all.

"Ah," Aziraphale says, almost to himself. "That's quite alright." And then pulls Crowley's lips upon his own.

(This is a story about mouths. How they eat, how they name. How they chase the taste of familiarity on foreign tongues. Let me tell you how it goes.)

Crowley spends the night and in the morning there is tea, and rays of sunlight dancing with dust as Crowley watches Aziraphale eat his scones. (He thinks he might try one, someday.) In the evening there is a table for two at the Ritz.

Later, much later, there will be talk of a cottage. There will be a garden and the sea, and piles of books to trip over. There will be more names, and kisses with them too. There will be tastes and smells and sights.

There will be routine and familiarity, and new things to learn too.

There will be a story - if you are patient enough to listen.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much, truly, for reading. I hope you'll consider leaving kudos, or perhaps even a comment - I live for those.


End file.
